Research on Rural Caregiving: A Literature Review

The goals of this article are to present a systematic review of rural caregiving research and provide suggestions for future research efforts. The review, conducted through a search of databases, was limited to original research articles published between 1990 and 2007. The articles focused on informal caregiving of dependent older adults in rural settings. Thirty-one articles met the inclusion criteria, with 11 being rural/urban comparative studies and 20 being rural only studies. The majority of the studies were quantitative and cross-sectional. Areas for improvement in future research include incorporating theory, defining key terms, using probability sampling, examining data longitudinally, including objective measures, recruiting more racially/ethnically diverse samples, and using a mixed-method approach. Currently, it is difficult to know the extent to which the rural environment influences informal caregiving. Additional research is needed to develop a more thorough understanding of caregiving in the rural context.